Recent 
sightings list

1969, June 5th. Strandlykkja. 
The eastern shore in the south end of the lake. Four men, armed with a pair of binoculars, watched a 10 m long black animal basking in the surface for nearly 40 minutes.

1980, middle part of June.
Mrs Turid S. Andreassen enjoyed an outdoors breakfast with her children at her holiday cabin close to the shore when she detected a fast moving wave. Inside the wave she was able to see a long wriggling creature going at high speed in the surface. It vanished towards the south after three minutes.

1980, July 27th. Ørbekk.
The eastern shore in the south end of the lake. Mrs Karen Marie Aanum and her male friend, an old sailor. Being close to the shore they spotted a huge animal breaking the surface at high speed, thus creating big waves, reminding the sailor of a blue whale breaking surface. It could have measured 10 m in length and was 1 m in diameter. The animal tore south along the lake at high speed.

There were two other sightings in the same area that day.

1994, May/June at midnight. Outside the west side of Helgøya.
Ole Martin Tangen is an avid fisher of big lake trout. He was alone in his boat this time trolling for the lake trout. The surface of the lake was dead calm, and the night was one of those beautiful, warm and light northern summer nights. The boat suddenly rocked as something big passed the boat. The "thing" must have been of tremendous size, going just below the surface creating a big bow wave. It seemed not to mind the boat and the hobby fisherman, but kept going at its course till it vanished far out towards the south. Ole Martin later compared the frightening event with a submarine passing his boat at high speed. Nonetheless, after gaining himself he continued fishing all night since the "thing" obviously continued away from his boat.

1997, about July 10th, in the afternoon. The Nes Sound.
Rolf Rosenlund and his wife Snefrid lived at the old dairy building at Tingnes for five years. This evening he and his wife were sitting outside in the quiet evening enjoying the panoramic view of the Nes sound. Suddenly they saw somthing in the water obviously swimming at high speed towards the bridge across the sound. A small part of the back was visible in the waves it created. Just before it hit the side of the bridge it sank down and the waves rolled on to the rocks. Immediately it surfaced again and turned back towards the east. It gained speed heading for the Hornsodden. It swam at high speed for quite a distance before it finally submerged and was gone. The couple fetched a pair of binoculars, but the animal did not show up again.
The visible part of the hump was 50 cm long and 20 cm high, black or dark brown. It created a big bow wave and left a v-shaped wake. Rolf is an experienced troller on the lake and estimated the speed of the swimming creature to 10 - 20 km/t.

1998, July. The Nes Sound.
Ole Martin Tangen together with his brother-in-law were taking the boat parallell to the shore towards their fishing cabin when they suddenly witnessed the echo sounder showing a big animal passing just underneath their boat. The echo sounder read a depth of 3 m for a few seconds at a spot where the normal depth is 15 - 20 m. Several times the two guys turned the boat to check the spot with the strange reading, but they never got a new contact, only the real bottom.

2002
April 29th, 01.30 p.m. Light rain.
The witness wants to remain anonymus.

Right north of the Mjoes bridge the witness was driving north along the E6 highway which at this point literally runs on the shore of the lake. What the witness saw: “Something” was swimming at a walking pace southwards 200 meters off the shore. A dark shape which reminded of a huge drain pipe could be seen in the surface. It appeared to successively stretch out and make tight coils, causing it to undulate vertically in the water, alternatively being visible and then being half submerged. This visible part was “at least” 5 meters in length (15 feet). A bit in front and on each side of the undulating “drainpipe” something was churning the water to foam. Still a bit further up front was a smaller but more indefinite shape bobbing in the water. The witness naturally lost sight of the creature as they went in opposite directions and because of the heavy traffic.

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